


rate of perception

by verity



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Corpse Flower, Engineering, F/F, Getting Together, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-09 12:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7802710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jillian needs more data.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rate of perception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tiac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiac/gifts).



> with thanks and love to disney princess (for the science), dangercupcake, Ashe, and magneticwave. special appreciation to RM for her documentation of the real life unsolved mystery at Green View Cemetery.
> 
> for tiac <3

Erin moves closer to the plant. Jillian follows her, careful to stick to the dirt path. Not that proximity is much of an improvement over the Google search they did back in the lab. The corpse flower hasn't opened yet: mostly, it looks like a six-foot-tall penis. The real show won't start until it opens, when the interior will rise to the temperature of a live human body and smell like a decomposing one.

"The last time this thing bloomed was in 1939, shit went crazy." Patty's surveying the corpse flower from a safe remove. "The Yankees beat the A's 21-0 and you better believe there was some spectral activity." 

"The Yankees suck," Abby says.

The horticulturalist who accompanied them to the greenhouse clears his throat.

"Love those Yankees," Jillian says, poorly feigning enthusiasm. A foot ahead of her, Erin startles. "Can't wait to see them in the Super Bowl."

Erin glances back at her. They've only been in the greenhouse for a few minutes, but her hair is already beginning to frizz at the ends, the body taking on a soft wave, bangs curling. "Tone it down with the Peter Pan's shadow thing, geez."

"I just want to look at it," Jillian says. "You think this one's a grower or a show-er?"

Erin rolls her eyes.

"We can't disappoint the public," the suit from the Botanical Gardens office says. "You have to understand—"

"The hype for your skunk plant is more important than preventing a major paranormal event?" Abby says sharply. "Oh, I heard you loud and clear."

Erin bends over to peer carefully at the wrapped stalk. Her hands are clasped behind her back. Someone must have told her that's what you do with something you really want to touch.

Jillian crouches down next to her, mulch crunching softly beneath her galoshes. "Do you know what a dead body smells like after twelve hours?"

"Bet _you_ do, Dr. Freak," Patty calls over.

"I'm hoping I don't find out," says Erin.

* * *

Outside the greenhouse, the dark clouds massed in the sky earlier have unleashed a torrential summer shower. Patty has a golf umbrella, Abby has Patty, Jillian has a raincoat, and Erin has one of those two-dollar numbers that vendors hawk out of granny carts during every Manhattan downpour. The umbrella comes apart in Erin's hand as they walk back to the parking lot. She makes a fist where the spines fan out from the shaft and lowers the umbrella over her head, but it's no use: they collapse further and the rain sheets down her back. When she tries to speed up her steps, she loses her footing in a puddle of scum. Jillian catches her, gripping her elbow, and Erin clings to Jillian's shoulder. "Fuck," she hisses into Jillian's ear.

"Hang on," Jillian says, paradoxically, before she shrugs Erin off, followed by her coat. It's big enough to hold over both their heads, wider than Patty's umbrella. Erin ducks under Jillian's coat, sputtering. "You just have to find the puddles, don't you?"

Erin reaches up to grab the collar. "Please hold off on the cruel metaphors for my life until we're in the car."

Patty and Abby are waiting up ahead at the curb, Patty peering at them curiously while Abby stares at her phone. "Oooh," she says, her gaze lowering to the crumpled umbrella dangling from Erin's fingers. "Made out like the Hindenburg, huh?"

"Google Maps thinks we need to go through Yonkers if we don't want to spend two hours in gridlock," Abby says. "That can't be right."

Erin groans. "I just want to get out of these clothes."

Jillian's hair is wet, trickling down her back. Her safety glasses are beginning to fog with condensation. The rain outside hasn't broken the summer heat. She wants to strip down to her underwear and walk through the rain unfettered until her body feels cool again. Fortunately, her mind and her mouth run on separate tracks, so all she says is, "They have Dunkin' in Yonkers."

"They have a giant-ass mall, too, but you don't see _me_ heading up there to shop," Patty says.

"Now it's New Rochelle," Abby says. "Are you kidding me?"

* * *

Back in Manhattan, they're stuck on FDR Drive for what feels like hours; some accident in Columbus Circle has backed up Henry Hudson all the way to Inwood. Patty is at the wheel because, unlike the rest of them, she can actually keep her chill in stop-and-go traffic. She taps her fingers on the gear shift in time to the beat of the Missy Elliott song she has cranked on the hearse's pitiful stereo system. Jillian really needs to do something about that.

"I guess you're not dropping me home, huh," Erin says, staring longingly at the exit for 116th.

Patty sighs. "Honey, not even for you am I trying to go crosstown right now."

"But I'm going to die of pneumonia," Erin says.

"Sure you are," Patty says. "Too good, too pure for this world."

Abby says, "You could go to Holtz's. She's on the way, kinda."

* * *

Jillian lives just off Lex in the upper 60s in the apartment that she inherited from her great-grandmother. The women on her mother's side of the family are long-lived: Jillian's grandmother is still thriving in Arizona as she approaches her 90s. Aside from her wavy hair and steady hands, Jillian has little in common with them. Her great-grandmother was always stooped over, her fingers gnarled but still nimble at the myriad activities of womanly life that remain mysterious and impenetrable to Jillian. The carpet and drapes reeked of cigarette smoke when Jillian took possession of the apartment. She slept on the bed for a few nights before she declared it, too, a loss.

What remains: the china piled high in the sink, the framed needlepointing, the shelves of Hummel figurines that gather dust. The detritus still feels borrowed, barely hers. Jillian hung blackout curtains in all of the windows and sleeps on a queen mattress half-covered by the twin comforter she took to college. The plaid fabric is soft and familiarly worn. When she can't sleep, she plays with the threadbare patches and weaves her fingers into the holes.

"This isn't what I expected." Erin's eyes dart between the sink and the stained floral wallpaper. "No offense."

"Me neither," Jillian says. "Wardrobe thataway, unless you feel like reenacting the Dyatlov Pass incident." She hangs her raincoat on the rack by the door and pries the ruined umbrella from Erin's grip. There's no room for it in the trash, so Jillian wedges it between the can and the overflowing grocery bags with recyclables.

Erin is in Jillian's apartment. She's standing next to Jillian, now in bare feet, the wool of her suit emitting a faint odor of wet dog and cedar as it dries. "With the hypothermia and skull fractures?"

Jillian hooks her thumbs in her belt loops. "Whatever floats your boat. Lofts your kite. Polishes your... oyster."

Erin huffs and steps forward into the living room. She keeps _looking_. If it were just her body, Jillian would be comfortable to find herself so surveilled. Instead, Erin trails her fingers along the warped wood of the hi-fi cabinet and over the quilled edge of the peeling paper by the light switch. She examines the sampler hanging by the bedroom door. "'Friendship's a name to few confin'd, offspring of a noble mi—'"

"If only I'd known that embroidery was the way to get you back to my place," Jillian says lightly.

"Sorry," Erin says. "Where's the—oh, there's the clothes. Is there a clean pile?"

"Try the closet," Jillian says. "I never wear anything in there."

It's suits, mostly, and a random assortment of academic gear. Erin pulls a Cal t-shirt and a pair of NC State track pants from one of the hanging shelves. "I can't imagine you in these."

Jillian shrugs. "Amazing how much clothing you can destroy in the lab."

While Erin changes in the bathroom, Jillian lies on top of her comforter and closes her eyes. She hears other people moving around on the other side of the wall all the time—she does have neighbors—but it's different to have someone behind a closed door, a door that will open. Erin's already made off with Jillian's MIT sweatshirt; maybe she'll make off with these garments, too. Decorate herself in the comfort of castoffs.

This conjecture is at odds with the Erin that Jillian knows. Jillian needs more data.

Erin emerges with her suit neatly draped over one arm. The shirt fits; the track pants are scandalously tight. Jillian gives her a thumbs up. "You're fit to pledge Alpha Delta Pi, Gilbert."

" _Thanks_ , I guess," Erin says, and then, "No, I mean it."

* * *

Jillian sleeps on the couch in her lab sometimes, but usually she walks half a mile to the 6 and takes the train home. In the early morning, she retraces her path, picking up something to eat as she walks from the breakfast food cart that parks at Hunter. Too-bitter coffee, too-sweet pastry, sticky fingers that she wipes on thin napkins while she waits for the train. She licks her finger tips clean and dries them again.

As usual, Abby is asleep on the couch on the first floor of the firehouse. Jillian has never seen Abby's apartment, just as Abby has never seen Jillian's. Presumably Abby goes home sometimes, but she lives at the ass-end of the A uptown and keeps a few changes of clothes in the lab. Right now, her ponytail is undone, her shirt undone one button at the collar, her knees drawn up as close to her as the couch will allow. Jillian heads toward the back of the room to start the first pot of coffee for the day. It's the best way to wake up Abby that she's found—well, after a squirt gun.

Jillian resents the existence of mornings, and also the sun, but she does her best theoretical work before anyone else is up and going. When she can be still in her head and _think_. She's been designing a larger reverse PKE trap, one that can take in a dozen T-4s at a time, but today she pushes those plans aside and turns to a clean page in her notebook. The corpse flower is going to draw more spirits than any one trap can hold. Who knows, it might summon the Dodgers.

What they need is a containment _field_.

Jillian chews on the end of her ballpoint pen. They'll only need a brief power draw to produce a persistent current. Adequate cooling. Sufficient quantities of YBCO. Hydrogen sulfide is less exotic, but the pressure required for high temperature conductivity is impractical to produce on the go.

A shadow falls across her notebook. It's Abby, leaning over Jillian's desk. "I brought you more coffee."

"I require intravenous administration and rare earth minerals," Jillian says.

Abby holds out Jillian's _GENTLEMAN & SCHOLAR_ mug. "Maybe start with the mouth."

They drink together in relative silence. A few slurps, the hum of machinery. Over the past few months, heir laboratory's background noise has changed in nature more than volume: the clamor of students outside and the footsteps overhead have given way to city traffic on two sides of the building and a noisy gut rehab on the third. Jillian is soothed by constants. The sensation of her mug in her hand.

* * *

The elevator to the Mayor's office has polished brass walls and marble tile on the floor. Patty toes the point where four meet and says, "What a waste of public resources."

Jillian nods. "That's got to have eaten a few hundred pounds of the safe loadbearing capacity."

"I meant money," Patty says. "But that, too, sure."

At the top floor, the elevator dings and the doors slide open. Jennifer Lynch is there, her familiar smile fixed in place. "So nice to see you. Right this way, follow me."

"We're here twice a week," Abby says. "We know where we're going."

The Mayor is waiting for them at his desk as usual. "Take a seat, take a seat. I hear that you're building us a giant magnet."

"The last time we built a miniature nuclear reactor," Erin says as she sits down. "I think magnet sounds like the way to go. Totally harmless."

"Actually—" Abby says.

"We are building a giant magnet so that flower doesn't open a Pandora's refrigerator of dead people," Patty says. "Like, we're talking a lot of dead people."

"This is a big exhibit, lots of publicity," Jennifer Lynch says. "We can't just shut it down. People are going to want to use cell phones and digital cameras, and that's just what they'll be bringing into the building."

Jillian does not have her feet on the Mayor's desk, but she's thinking about it. She's leaning back in her chair. This conversation is boring.

"Didn't we already agree that the cat is out of the bag?" Erin says.

Jennifer Lynch looks like she's restraining herself from physical violence. The Mayor says, " _Enough_ about the goddamn _cat_."

One of the men in black tries to engage Jillian in a knowing, sympathetic gaze, but she's not having it. "Did you know that marble weighs over 2,700 kilograms per cubic meter?"

Into the pause that follows, Patty says, "You better not have towed our car again."

* * *

The NYPD tow lot is all the way out on 12th Avenue past the Javits Center. Jillian and Patty get on the A at Chambers, jogging past an ominously empty car to reach a populated one before the doors close. The pole Jillian grabs is warm from someone's hand.

"I can't believe this shit," Patty grumbles, wedging herself between Jillian and the doors. "Ghosts? Fine. Demon flowers? Whatever. The 7 does not goddamn connect to _anything_? Do you _know_ how much money they spent building that extension?"

"Nope," Jillian says, "but I know you're going to tell me."

"2.4 billion dollars, and it took them eight years to build it!"

"And they're still drilling a _fucking_ tunnel to East Harlem!" some guy a few bodies farther into the aisle shouts. A nervous mother in Keds and an _I Love NY_ shirt belatedly covers her kid's ears: the kid is engrossed in whatever show is on her tablet.

Three stops and they're stumbling out into Penn Station and the searing heat aboveground. Patty pulls on a pair of fashionably mirrored shades as Jillian digs a ballcap from her messenger bag. She has to flex the brim back into shape before she can put it on, and the sides still dig into her temples. "Okay," she says. "We got this."

"At least you have the keys this time," Patty says.

They cross north at Eleventh to avoid the teeming masses awaiting the Megabus, though they still have to wade through the stragglers clinging to the shade from the Javits Center. At 12th, the Hudson River and the New Jersey shore spread out before them, foregrounded by rows of impounded cars: New York City at its most mundane and least beautiful. Jillian loves it.

* * *

Their next bust is pretty routine.

"I cannot believe that Aaron Burr's grave is a Pokégym," Abby says sternly. "I cannot believe that you are stopping me from returning to my bed so you can—"

" _Henry_ Aaron Burr," Patty says. "Do you have a real good explanation for why it keeps changing hands in the middle of the night, 'cause I don't see nobody _alive_ here battling it out at 2 AM."

"Just us," Erin says, squinting at the screen of her phone.

Patty nods. "That's right. You keep this one Red!"

They're standing at the foot of Henry Aaron & Harriet Burr's grave in Greenwood Cemetery, one of a row of stone monuments that loom over them. Jillian's been in more than a few cemeteries in the past few months, but none of them have been this fancy. She kneels down to run her fingers over the inscription on the stone. "'Being dead yet speaketh'? That sounds real restful to me."

"Yeah, but do you think someone gave him an iPhone?" Abby's walking a grid with the PKE meter. The grave is well within the walls of the cemetery, too far for someone to be challenging Erin from outside. "Also, that's from the Bible."

Patty looks over at Abby skeptically.

"She's not religious, just spends a lot of time in graveyards," Erin says. "God, who is this _asshole_ with a _Jolteon_?"

There's no point in trying to film out here—it's too dark. Jillian wanders over to Erin and peers over her shoulder at the phone. Erin's avatar is a dark-haired dude in a ballcap. She's at level 25. Huh.

"Could be somebody spoofing GPS," Patty says.

Abby lets out a pointed yawn.

"Wait, you guys," Erin says. "There's something going on down by the chapel, too."

 _Down_ turns out to be the operative word. The chapel is flanked by mausoleums on both sides that are built into the hills, taller even than the chapel. They have to follow a winding path to get a glimpse of the huge gothic building hunkered into the hollow. Lit only by the full moon and NYC light pollution, the chapel is creepy as fuck. Jillian's bare arms get goosebumps in the warm summer night. The red sensor on the PKE meter begins to spin. She really should have brought Pringles.

Patty pulls out her proton thrower. "Shoulda never downloaded that app, shoulda stayed off Reddit, this is why we can't have nice things, nope, nope."

"The ghosts have a Snorlax?" Erin says.

"Put that _away_ ," Abby shouts.

* * *

"So what you're telling me is that you confiscated a radioactive cell phone from a ghost," the Mayor says.

* * *

After they get back to the firehouse, Jillian loses some time working on the magnet. Sometimes people come in and say things to her and she nods. Abby makes her drink one of those chocolate shakes that taste like mud. They have so little time and there's so much to do. She crashes on the lab couch just before dawn and wakes up with the light streaming over her face. Her head throbs like a hangover and her stomach aches. She has to piss. The heinous constraints of the body.

"You should go home and get some real sleep," Erin says when Jillian slides down the pole to the first floor and the bathroom. Erin looks bright-eyed and plucky. There's the Cal shirt: Jillian was wondering if she'd ever see it again.

"I gotta—" Jillian says, jerking her thumb towards the bathroom. "Maybe after."

She almost falls asleep again on the toilet, but catches herself just as she's going for a slump. Washes her hands. Pats a damp paper towel to her face. There's a long swipe of grease from ear to chin that doesn't want to come off.

"I'm going up to Union Square," Erin says to Jillian as she emerges. "Want to come with?"

Fresh air will be good. Wake her up a little. A walk. Okay.

As soon as they step outside the firehouse, the swampy humidity overtakes them. Jillian can feel her hair curling on her forehead, the back of her neck. She rolls up her sleeves as they walk to the subway. Erin keeps glancing over at Jillian, lips parting like there's something she wants to say.

They only have one stop to go on the Q, so Jillian mostly leans against the divider and peers at the hardback the man seated beside her is reading. Something something _Anthology_. It's thick, the spine cracked; lines of irregular length, unevenly spaced. Poetry. The guy has a highlighter between his lips, which he pulls from his mouth to mark something. Someone bumps against Jillian's hip as the train slows for 14th. "Sorry," Erin says.

Now Jillian is the person holding in words. She imagines two concave surfaces, mirroring, or turned, nesting into each other. Or meeting at one end to coil. She's very tired. She can feel the weight of the wire in her hands.

As they climb above ground, the comfortable stink of the subway gives way to that of fish and ripe fruit. The market. That's right.

She buys cold brew from the first vendor she spots, thick and cool with a faint sheen of oil on top. They have pastries at the same stand, which Jillian leaves Erin to dither over. Jillian likes looking at the sheep's milk cheese even though she never buys any. The sheep themselves are upstate. The aged cheeses are hard and waxy.

Erin catches up to Jillian while she's examining the produce. "You don't cook," Erin says, sounding confused, as Jillian inspects a beefy purple tomato. "Are you going to put that in a sandwich?"

Jillian nests the tomato back into the crate it came from. These were grown in Connecticut. Imagine anything growing there.

Jillian passes the fishmonger and the sausage guys and the yogurt people until she finds another bakery. She chugs her cold brew and chucks her cup in the trash before she digs out her wallet to pay for a ham and cheese croissant. It's cold, the cheese congealed. Nicer than what she usually gets from the food cart.

Erin is still with the yogurt people, buying something ridiculous. Probably full of probiotics like the Jamie Lee Curtis yogurt in the firehouse fridge. They make her pay a fifty-cent bottle deposit. Erin tucks the bottle into a reusable shopping bag that she's pulled out of nowhere. Her shirt rides up on her side with the movement, exposing a sliver of winter-pale flesh that's as tantalizing as her little bowtie.

What attracts Jillian is contradiction and complexity. Economy balanced with indulgence. What does it mean, what does it _mean_. Not existentially. Sheep's milk cultivated beyond curdling by bacteria. There's a process, documented and described, results consistently replicated. Her hands are greasy and there's still grime beneath her nails. The brown napkin rubbed between her palms comes away crumpled and stained.

Erin's fingers twist in the handle of her bag as she walks toward Jillian. Forest green on pale flesh. The lettering on the side has mostly rubbed away. "Did you get everything you wanted?"

"Yeah," Jillian says. "I'm good."

* * *

They put the magnet beneath the pedestal the corpse flower will rest on, only _smelling_ like death. "Great work," Jennifer Lynch says as she surveys the installation.

"I hope you have, like, five contingency plans," Patty says to Jillian. "This is too easy, so I'm frankly preparing for the apocalypse."

"The apocalypse already happened," Abby says. "We saved the day, remember?"

Erin is studying the placard in front of the exhibit. "I can't believe I didn't notice this before."

Jillian peers over her shoulder.

" _Amorphophallus titanum_ ," she says. "Told you so."

* * *

Containment units in use are kept in lead-shielded room on the second floor of the firehouse. Jillian consulted with Dr. Gorin about the best way to do it. Before they moved the units inside, Jillian turned off the lights and kissed Dr. Gorin the way she used to, let Dr. Gorin press her against the shielding, a hand flat against the wall behind her. Her leg between Jillian's thighs. Ghosts and ghosts.

Jillian doesn't go into the room today. All of their traps are downstairs, crated or just stacked beside the hearse. She does a quick inventory, calculating. Not that the numbers have changed. They can't handle another major event without a substantial power source and a place for spirits to go that isn't Michigan. If the magnet doesn't work, she'll have to get creative.

"What are you doing?" Patty says from the couch. Everyone likes the downstairs couch better than Jillian's. "Don't tell me we're preparing for another—"

"Should be fine," Jillian says. "Unless you really like the Yankees."

Patty rolls her eyes. "Born and raised in Canarsie, baby."

Jillian plunks down next to Patty on the couch and swings her feet onto the coffee table. "What're you reading?"

"'History of the Aether Theory.'" Patty holds up a sheaf of laser-printed pages, heavily annotated with looping cursive. "Erin said it should help me with the theory part of busting."

Patty reads, Jillian builds, Erin theorizes, Abby investigates. All overlap, of course: an uneven Venn Diagram. Jillian would never ask Patty to risk her nails near a soldering gun. Today, they're long and pointed, pink striped with a row of rhinestones, thumbnail underscoring a line. Jillian hooks her chin over Patty's shoulder to read. _What the space above the mercury in the barometer tube contained was “subtle matter” many times lighter than air._ Patty reaches up with her other hand to pat Jillian's cheek.

"What if I built you something that dried your nails faster?" Jillian mumbles.

Patty laughs: it vibrates through Jillian's whole body. "Gel dries quick. You could make me some protection for 'em, though."

"Slime-resistant topcoat," Jillian says. "You got it."

* * *

Erin's outfit the next day is stratigraphical. A loose blouse, worn jeans, even older sneakers. Jillian can't tell whether it's stylish or not. The blouse fastens at the shoulder on each side, tiny buttons tucked into tiny cloth loops. "Do those work? I need to know." Jillian examines from a socially appropriate distance. "Where do you find these things?"

"Nordstrom Rack," Erin says. "I've never checked?"

"You don't _know_."

Kevin's voice echoes up through the hole in the floor. "You got a phone call! It was the mayor. Half an hour ago."

"Oh, geez," Abby says, not softly.

"I took a message," Kevin says proudly. "There is a ghost tomato in the Bronx."

Patty says, "Somehow I got a feeling that is _not_ what the mayor said."

Erin's hands are at her shoulders, for a moment, fumbling, before they reach behind her neck. She catches Jillian's eyes and flushes. "I'll just—I have to change."

"Yes," Jillian says. "Okay."

"Because ghosts," Erin says.

Jillian nods.

"My coveralls are downstairs," Erin says.

"Yep," says Jillian.

"I'm going to put those on," Erin says. "Good plan. Good—very good."

Jillian is already in her coveralls. She should know what's wrong. She's double- and triple-checked. Her figures, the equipment. But plans always yield to the reality of implementation. The element of surprise.

* * *

What the mayor said was a _tornado_.

The ghosts are floating around the vortex created by the the magnet. Some of them have distinct bodily form; others are smudges of light, smears. Suspended in that subtle matter, which has taken on a bluish glow. In the center, the corpse flower is just beginning to bloom. It smells like Jillian's great-grandmother's mattress.

"There's no way we can open the exhibit to the public right now." Jennifer Lynch frowns. "This could cause mass hysteria."

"That would have more weight if you didn't say it _every_ time," Erin says.

Abby puts a firm hand on Erin's shoulder.

"I saw my cousin," a security guard is saying to Patty. "My cousin's up there. I saw him."

Patty says something Jillian can't hear, her face going soft.

Jillian goes up to the exhibit, to the pedestal the concealed magnet lies beneath. The scent of decay becomes stronger. Even with this magnitude of paranormal activity, the magnet shouldn't quench. It's operating just as designed. Some things can't be contained. Just—redirected.

"I've got an idea," Jillian says loudly. "You're not going to like it."

* * *

"This just doesn't seem ethical," Erin says.

"What's the likelihood they end up near your parents' house?" Abby says. "It's a big state. Statistically speaking."

"Do not speak statistically to her," Patty says warningly.

The vortex funnels straight into the receiver. They even get it covered by a larger pedestal. Cat, meet bag, meet the Great Lake State. Jillian gets the job done.

"Truly, we can't thank you enough," Jennifer Lynch says.

Abby rolls her eyes.

They exit the gardens just before sunrise, the sky warming above them. The air is surprisingly cool considering how humid it is. Patty looks up as they walk and says, "Damn, that's some golden-throned dawn."

"Gotta love that weather phenomenon," Jillian agrees.

Erin is walking behind them with Abby, talking, her voice low. Maybe about Michigan.

* * *

Jillian dodges a pile of rapidly-melting ice on the sidewalk as she rounds the corner of her street. The come-down from a good bust is harsh, like the recoil from a firearm: her skin is buzzing. There's no way she can concentrate enough to work. So, one fulfilling afternoon of lying in bed for hours before she falls asleep, coming right up.

Erin is sitting on Jillian's front steps in Jillian's MIT hoodie, her eyes intent on her phone. Maybe catching Pokémon. The longer Jillian knows Erin, the more Erin's aggressively constructed facade falls away. Someone underneath emerges, recedes, appears again from another angle.

When Erin glances up and sees Jillian, she doesn't call out, just lifts her hand in a wave. Jillian waves back.

"Hey," Jillian says when she reaches her building. "What are you doing here?"

Erin stands, dusting nonexistent dirt from her jeans. "Couldn't sleep. I thought you'd be home already."

Jillian fishes her keys out of her backpack. "Had some sensitive stuff running in the lab."

"Of course," Erin says, and then nothing. Her phone is still in her hand.

"Well—come in," Jillian says.

There's no tour to give this time. Jillian's never had second-round visitors aside from her mom and the cable guy. Erin takes off her shoes and fidgets, fingers tensing and releasing at her side, her tight rein on her body slipping. Briefly, she clasps her hands behind her back. "Sorry, I'm imposing."

"You'll have to try harder for that," Jillian says lightly.

Erin pulls her sweatshirt over her head. Underneath, she's still wearing the shirt with tiny buttons. She reaches her hand up to her shoulder where they clasp. "Oh," she says after a moment. "I guess they're decorative after all."

Jillian says, "Null hypothesis wins out." Then— "I've been told by some people that I'm fascinating."

"Well, you are," Erin says.

Jillian measures her words. "Like a carrion flower is fascinating." Rare, delicate, worthy of cultivation and curation. An object of study. Best observed from a distance to gauge the scale.

"That's not what I mean."

"Spell it out for me," Jillian says.

Erin touches Jillian's shoulder. She's only a little taller than Jillian without her usual heels. Her hands are small, like Jillian's. "You act like everything's a joke to you, but it's not. You're—kind. And _you_. I don't know how you do that. I don't even know what that's like."

Jillian says, "I don't really have a choice there."

Erin puts her free hand on Jillian's other shoulder like she's bracing herself. "Well, I like this you."

Jillian braces herself, too, but inside. She closes her eyes. How can she map this phenomenon—the thrill of anticipation, the pang of humiliation at so revealing herself? And yet she's still surprised when Erin kisses her, closemouthed, lingering. Fear clenching her chest, not releasing but shifting, a phase transformation: into relief, into desire. Jillian puts her hand on Erin's waist. Her shirt is soft beneath Jillian's rough fingers, the fine threads catching. Erin lets out a breath into Jillian's mouth and they open to each other, easy, easy. How simple it is. That's what people always say. Jillian never believed it.

* * *

They stumble into Jillian's bedroom, because it's bed or her great-grandmother's tar-scented settee. The blackout curtains are still drawn; Jillian bats Erin's hand away when she goes for the overhead lights. She pulls the chain for the bulb in the closet instead. The light spills out dimly past the door, diffused, and Erin sprawls back on the bed, catching herself on her elbows. Jillian climbs up after her and straddles her lap.

"What do you like?" Erin says to Jillian's collarbone. "I don't really—"

"Not a lot of experience with girls?"

Erin shakes her head. "Not a lot of experience with you."

"We can fix that." Jillian kisses Erin on the mouth, then ducks her head to kiss up Erin's throat to the tender skin beneath her ear. "How about you?"

"What?" Erin says. "I—do you want a list?"

" _Erin Gilbert_ ," Jillian says.

They make out on the bed for a long time, lazy, still in their street clothes. Erin puts her hand beneath the back of Jillian's shirt and strokes along her spine. "Tell me what you like."

"You." Jillian wriggles her toes. "You might have noticed."

Erin snorts. "Yeah, I did."

Jillian presses her face against Erin's neck. "I'm a big old sap, you know that."

"I do?" Erin says, and then, warmly: "Oh, yeah, I guess I do."

* * *

Three hours later, Jillian's in the undercroft of an old church uptown, stepping around crumbling wooden boards and rusting who-knows-whats, following the rector as she steps knowingly around junk and trouble spots on the uneven wooden subfloor. "We've been joking about the ghost for a long time," Reverend Blye says, "But a parishioner actually saw it a few days ago. Last night, some things were disturbed in the pantry we have for the community kitchen."

"And we're in the creepy murder basement because…?" Erin says.

Reverend Blye directs her flashlight toward the next door. "This is where James saw it. We store some of our extra folding chairs under the parish hall. Here's the flooded boiler, if you want to see something _really_ scary."

"Yikes," Abby says, giving the boiler a wide berth.

Jillian has her own maglite, so she's trailing behind the rest of the group. She examines the walls, chipped lathe and plaster, and the new metal supports that jut up from the floor and span the ceiling above. The water around the half-submerged boiler ripples in concentric rings. The drip itself is inaudible, its origin obscured. Up ahead, Reverend Blye has flipped on an overhead light, throwing the next room into stark relief. Her head is bent together with Patty's.

The ghost hovers over the water. If Jillian didn't know better, she'd mistake it for mist. The spirit. "Hey, Gilbert," she says, low, and Erin turns back from the threshold. Jillian nods toward the boiler.

Erin pulls the trap from the bottom of her pack, slides it across the floor. They don't need any extra oomph—this thing's barely a class one. Erin steps on the pedal and says, "Gotcha."

* * *

_The rose communicates instantly with the woman by sight, collapsing its_  
_boundaries, and the woman widens her boundaries._  
_Her "rate of perception" slows down, because of its complexity._

([x](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/58186))

**Author's Note:**

> written for tiac, who prompted:  
> 
>
>> thin puddle of scum on the street you're glad to step over in thick rubber-soled boots.  
> a cheap umbrella breaks in five parts.  
> the subway car is empty but the pole is warm from someone else's hand.  
> open-air markets smell like fish and ripe fruit.  
> ice spilled on a sidewalk after someone's party.  
> dirty stained-glass windows.  
> neighbors whose conversation/parties/furniture-moving/sex are audible through the walls.  
> reading over a stranger's shoulder on public transit to see what book they're reading.  
> elephant-ear weeds growing in abandoned lots.  
> fake grape flavor.  
> sunrise.
> 
> I didn't catch 'em all, but I tried.


End file.
